Telegram Bot

Deploy your AI chatbot as a Telegram bot

Take the same AI that powers your website chat and give it a Telegram handle. Works in DMs, groups, and channel comments. Multilingual out of the box. Set up in under 5 minutes via @BotFather.

Free plan · 5-minute BotFather setup · Works in DMs, groups, channels

From BotFather to live AI bot in 5 minutes

No server to host, no webhook plumbing, no Telegram API boilerplate.

1

Create a bot via @BotFather

Open Telegram, search @BotFather, send /newbot, and give your bot a name + handle. BotFather returns a bot token — copy it.

2

Paste the token into InsiteChat

In your InsiteChat dashboard, open Webhooks & Integrations → Telegram. Paste the bot token and click Connect. We register the webhook with Telegram automatically.

3

Train on your content

In InsiteChat, add sources: your website, documentation, Notion pages, Google Drive folders, PDFs. The same training data powers the Telegram bot as the website widget.

4

Go live

Open Telegram and message your bot (or share its handle). Send any question — the AI reads it, retrieves relevant content from your knowledge base, and replies in under 10 seconds.

Why deploy your chatbot to Telegram

Some communities live on Telegram. Meet them where they already are.

Your bot, your knowledge base

The Telegram bot answers from the same InsiteChat-trained content as your website chatbot. Point it at your docs, FAQs, or Drive folders and it answers grounded in your content.

Works in 1-on-1 chats, groups, and channels

Deploy to private DMs, add to group chats (with admin), or use in channels. Configure whether the bot responds to all messages or only @mentions.

Multilingual by default

Auto-detects language from each message and replies in the same one — Hindi, Arabic, Spanish, French, German, 95+ languages including RTL scripts.

Sub-10-second replies

Messages hit the Telegram Bot API, InsiteChat generates a grounded answer, and the reply is posted back in under 10 seconds. No queueing, no polling delays.

Smart handoff + reply from dashboard

A multilingual classifier (literal keywords + Gemini intent + non-ASCII bypass) catches when visitors want a human — even when they don't use the word "human". Reply to escalated Telegram conversations directly from the InsiteChat dashboard, with the AI auto-muted while you handle it.

Custom commands built-in

Out of the box: /start, /help, /reset, /human. Add your own bot commands via the InsiteChat dashboard — great for "/pricing", "/status", "/docs" shortcuts.

Who this is for

Three patterns where a Telegram AI bot beats a website widget.

Customer support in Telegram

A large chunk of crypto, gaming, and e-commerce customers live in Telegram. Put your AI support there instead of making them email you — you'll see deflection rates jump overnight.

Community helper bot

Add the bot to your Telegram community group as a helper. It answers FAQ questions so your mods only deal with real conversations, not "how do I reset my password?" for the 100th time.

Internal team knowledge bot

Engineering or SRE teams that live in Telegram for on-call coordination can query an internal knowledge-base bot for runbooks, architecture docs, and incident response playbooks.

What the Telegram bot does

Same brain as your website chatbot, in Telegram's messaging UI.

  • Answer user questions grounded in your knowledge base
  • Respond in 95+ languages (auto-detected per message)
  • Work in 1-on-1 DMs, group chats, and channel comments
  • Respond to @mentions only (configurable)
  • Support standard commands: /start /help /reset /human
  • Smart handoff via multilingual intent classifier (Scale plan)
  • Reply to escalated conversations from the InsiteChat dashboard
  • Auto-mute the AI for a rolling 24h while a human is engaged
  • Send MarkdownV2-formatted replies with links and code blocks
  • Attach files and images from your knowledge base

Bot tokens stay encrypted

Telegram bot tokens are encrypted at rest in our database and never logged. You can revoke a token any time via @BotFather (which immediately invalidates it), and deleting the integration from InsiteChat wipes the token permanently. We never request permissions outside the specific bot you create.

Frequently asked questions

Everything you need to know about deploying your chatbot to Telegram.

How does the Telegram bot integration work?

You create a Telegram bot via @BotFather and paste its token into InsiteChat. We register a webhook with Telegram so every incoming message triggers the AI to generate a response from your knowledge base, which we then post back via the Telegram Bot API.

Can the bot be added to group chats?

Yes. Add your bot to any Telegram group (you need to be a group admin). From InsiteChat you can configure whether the bot responds to all messages, only @mentions, or only messages that start with a specific prefix like "/ask".

Does it work in Telegram channels?

Yes for read-only comment threads under channel posts. Channels themselves are broadcast-only (only admins post), so the bot can't answer in the channel itself — but it can answer in the comments attached to each post.

What languages does the Telegram bot support?

Auto-detects the language of each incoming message and replies in the same language. Works in 95+ languages as long as your knowledge base has relevant content. RTL scripts (Arabic, Hebrew) are supported.

Can the bot send images, files, or formatted text?

Yes. Replies support Telegram's MarkdownV2 formatting (bold, italic, code blocks, links). If your knowledge base references images or files, the bot can send them as attachments via the Bot API.

How do I turn the bot off for a while?

From the InsiteChat dashboard, toggle the Telegram integration off. The bot stays registered with Telegram but stops responding. Toggle it back on anytime.

Can one InsiteChat chatbot power multiple Telegram bots?

Yes. Each workspace can connect multiple Telegram bots, each with their own token, all drawing from the same knowledge base or different ones depending on how you configure them.

How does human handoff work on Telegram?

On Scale plans, the same multilingual classifier we use for WhatsApp runs on every Telegram message — literal keywords ("talk to a human", "speak to an agent"), non-ASCII bypass that routes non-Latin messages straight to the LLM, and a Gemini 2.5 Flash Lite intent classifier for frustration or implicit asks. When handoff fires, your team gets an email with full context, the conversation appears in the InsiteChat Human Support dashboard with a "Telegram" channel badge, and the AI auto-mutes for a rolling 24h on that conversation.

Can I reply to escalated Telegram conversations from the InsiteChat dashboard?

Yes. Open the escalated conversation in your Human Support tab, type your reply, hit Send — your message is delivered through your Telegram bot to the visitor. Telegram does not have a 24-hour reply window like WhatsApp does, so you can reply at any time after escalation. The AI stays muted while you're engaged; mark resolved or click "Hand back to AI" to let the bot take over again.

What does the Telegram integration cost?

Free on every InsiteChat plan, including the free tier. Telegram's Bot API is also free. You only pay for InsiteChat message volume as your bot scales.

Give your community a Telegram AI bot

Free plan, no credit card. 5-minute BotFather setup. First conversation usually lands within the hour.

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